Venice Biennale Awards Golden Lions to Cecilia Vicuña and Katharina Fritsch

Cecilia Vicuña b. 1948, Chile Follow +

German artist Katharina Fritsch and Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña have been awarded Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement by the Venice Biennale.

The winners were chosen by Cecilia Alemani, the curator of the forthcoming 59th edition, entitled The Milk of Dreams, from 23 April to 27 November 2022.

Alemani praised Vicuña for her efforts to preserve and translate works by Latin American writers, her political activism, which includes advocating for Chile’s indigenous peoples, and visual artworks ‘built around a deep fascination with Indigenous traditions and non-Western epistemologies.’

‘For decades, Vicuña has travelled her own path, doggedly, humbly, and meticulously, anticipating many recent ecological and feminist debates and envisioning new personal and collective mythologies,’ Alemani said.

In response to the award, Vicuña said, ‘I believe our art and consciousness can play a role in the urgent need to move away from violence and destruction, to save our environment from impending collapse.’

Alemani said she first encountered one of Fritsch’s works at the 1999 edition of the Venice Biennale.

‘The massive piece filling the main room at the Central Pavilion was titled Rattenkönig, the Rat King (1993), a disquieting sculpture in which a group of giant rodents is crouched in a circle with their tails knotted together, like some strange magic ritual. Every time I’ve encountered one of Fritsch’s sculptures in the years since, I’ve felt the same sense of awe and dizzying attraction.’

Fritsch frequently creates sculptures of people, animals, and objects such as seashells that she scales up or shrinks down and paints a single colour.

Alemani compared her works to ‘monuments from an alien civilisation, or artefacts on display in a strange post-human museum.’

The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement has been awarded since 1997, when it went to Agnes Martin and Emilio Vedova. It has since gone to artists including Louise Bourgeois, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, Barbara Kruger, Tino Sehgal, and, most recently, American sculptor Jimmie Durham. —[O]

Main image: Cecilia Vicuña in 2021. Photo: William Jess Laird. Courtesy Venice Biennale.